Of course, not everyone believes that the SPR itself is a good idea. Consider this recent post ($) from New York Times energy blogger Lisa Margonelli:

My sense is that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is more important as a psychological aid (like the stashes of food survivalists keep in case of catastrophe) than as a practical solution to energy security. In many ways, it is a relic of cold-war thinking that lives on even though the very idea of energy security has changed. We now import about a million barrels of oil a day in the form of goods from China. That is, China imports the oil, uses it to make products, and we depend upon those products. The reserve can do little to protect us in this more complicated modern world. If we double the size of the reserve, we will be paying $65 billion for more of the same psychological reassurance, and little else.

So the question is, do we need a similar “psychological assurance” for ethanol? For that matter, would stockpiling ethanol offer an assurance at all? Even if the SPR is an effective reserve against threats to our oil supply, does our ethanol supply need similar protections? Given that ethanol is such a small part of our overall energy mix, and given that despite the government’s support, its widespread use is still an open question, does the idea of a reserve make any sense?

It sound like we could make ethanol from grass shavings and other organics. Instead, buy 1 MM methanol stills for $1B and give them to recycling people around the country. Instead of sending grass shavings/organics to the dump, recycle them to collections centers around the country and sell the methanol until the big one comes.

They can’t bomb 1MM methanol stills. If the Germans would have used things other than potatoes, what language would we be talking today?

One poster commented “This really sounds like a scheme from the salt-dome operators looking to create new “business opportunities”". Loren, most of your subjects on your blog space have some merit. My question is “Did you chose this ethanol stockpile one for lack of a more worthy topic”? Anyone who gives this one a second thought is conveying the impression that they do not even have the most basic concept of what America’s energy problems really are. To put this even more plainly, we are stockpiling oil because we get the majority of what we use from foreign unstable sources. Ethanol is “home grown” and readily available, only compulsive hoarders would consider stockpiling it.